Currently, there is little known about the patient experience in traveling, transitioning, or relocating for other types of medical care to more urban centres, especially in the context of medical care transfers from rural and/or isolated areas of Northwestern British Columbia. This patient-oriented study is purposefully including patient partners in the steering committee to ensure a higher level of knowledge translation and to help inform decisions with their insights and awareness. The engagement of patient partners allows the study to focus on their priorities which, in turn, will lead to more prioritized findings and better outcomes for the patients, patient families, and health care providers. At the most recent steering committee meeting, patient partners were included in decisions being made for the scoping literature review. The group reviewed the initial search terms to establish an all-encompassing search. The three main questions being brought to the group were: “what ages should be included?”, “date range?”, and “what countries should be included?”. The group decided that we would focus on ages 19+ due to children with critical illness having different resources that meant this topic may need to be researched separately. The dates decided on would look at the last 10 years, 2009-2019, as many felt that the research before this will likely not be relevant due to the vast advancements in technology, cellphones and 3G networks being one example. Thirdly, while the US may have differences in medical insurance, they also have more published research than Canada, so the group ultimately decided to include the US as well as additional countries in the scoping literature review. These are only a few examples of how our patient partners provided us with helpful guidance that we may not have otherwise considered and how they will continue to enlighten the research process with their own rich experiences.

Patient Partner Engagement: Reviewing the Literature on the Patient Experience in Rural to Urban Medical Travel